"Tonto," I said as we were eating, "you know that when your mother screams at night I'm not beating her. You know who's really in trouble."
"Yes, I know."
"Then why don't you come in and help me?"
"Uh-uh. I know her."
"Listen, Hank," said Lydia, "don't turn my kids against me."
"He's the ugliest man in the world," said Lisa.
I liked Lisa. She was going to be a sexpot some day, a sexpot with personality.
After dinner Lydia and I went to our bedroom and stretched out. Lydia was into blackheads and pimples. I had a bad complexion. She moved the lamp down near my face and began. I liked it.
It made me tingle and sometimes I got a hard-on. Very intimate. Sometimes between squeezes Lydia would give me a kiss. She always worked on my face first and then moved on to my back and chest.
"You love me?"
"Yeh."
"Oooh, look at this one!"
It was a blackhead with a long yellow tail.
"It's nice," I said.
She was laying flat on top of me. She stopped squeezing and looked at me. "I'll put you in your grave, you fat fuck!"
I laughed. Then Lydia kissed me.
"I'll put you back in the madhouse," I told her.
"Turn over. Let me get your back."
I turned over. She squeezed at the back of my neck. "Oooh, there's a good one! It shot out! It hit me in the eye!"
"You ought to wear goggles."
"Let's have a little Henry!" "Think of it, a little Henry Chinaski!"
"Let's wait a while."
"I want a baby now!"
"Let's wait."
"All we do is sleep and eat and lay around and make love. We're like slugs. Slug-love, I call it."
"I like it."
"You used to write over here. You were busy. You'd bring ink and make your drawings. Now you go home and do all the interesting things there. You just eat and sleep here and then leave first thing in the morning. It's dull."
"I like it."
"We haven't been to a party in months! I like to see people! I'm bored! I'm so bored I'm about to go crazy! I want to do things! I want to DANCE! I want to, live!"
"Oh, shit."
"You're too old. You just want to sit around and criticize everything and everybody. You don't want to do anything. Nothing's good enough for you!"
I rolled out of bed and stood up. I began putting my shirt on.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm getting out of here."
"There you go! The minute things don't go your way you jump up and run out of the door. You never want to talk about things. You go home and get drunk and then you're so sick the next day you think you're going to die. Then you phone me!"
"I'm getting the hell out of here!"
"But why?"
"I don't want to stay where I'm not wanted. I don't want to stay where I'm disliked."
Lydia waited. Then she said, "All right. Come on, lay down. We'll turn off the light and just be still together."
I waited. Then I said, "Well, all right."
I undressed entirely and got under the blanket and sheet. I pressed my flank against Lydia's flank. We were both on our backs. I could hear the crickets. It was a nice neighborhood. A few minutes passed. Then Lydia said, "I'm going to be great."
I didn't answer. A few more minutes passed. Then Lydia leaped out of bed. She threw both of her hands up in the air toward the ceiling and said in a loud voice: "I'M GOING TO BE GREAT! I'M GOING TO BE TRULY GREAT! NOBODY KNOWS HOW GREAT I'M GOING TO BE!"
"All right," I said.
Then she said in a lower voice, "You don't understand. I'm going to be great. I have more potential than you have!"
"Potential," I said, "doesn't mean a thing. You've got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have."
"But I'm GOING to do it! I'M GOING TO BE TRULY GREAT!"
"All right," I said. "But meanwhile come on back to bed."
Lydia came back to bed. We didn't kiss each other. We weren't going to have sex. I felt weary. I listened to the crickets. I don't know how much time went by. I was almost asleep, not quite, when Lydia suddenly sat straight up in bed. And she screamed. It was a loud scream.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Be quiet."
I waited. Lydia sat there, without moving, for what seemed to be about ten minutes. Then she fell back on her pillow.
"I saw God," she said, "I just saw God."
"Listen, you bitch, you are going to drive me crazy!"
I got up and began dressing. I was mad. I couldn't find my shorts. The hell with them, I thought. I left them wherever they were. I had all my clothes on and was sitting on the chair pulling my shoes on my bare feet.
"What are you doing?" Lydia asked.
I couldn't answer. I went into the front room. My coat was flung over a chair and I picked it up, put it on. Lydia ran into the front room. She had put on her blue negligee and a pair of panties. She was barefooted. Lydia had thick ankles. She usually wore boots to hide them.
"YOU'RE NOT GOING!" she screamed at me.
"Shit," I said, "I'm getting out of here."
She leaped at me. She usually attacked me while I was drunk. Now I was sober. I sidestepped and she fell to the floor, rolled over and was on her back. I stepped over her on my way to the front door. She was in a spitting rage, snarling, her lips pulled back. She was like a leopardess. I looked down at her. I felt safe with her on the floor. She let out a snarl and as I started to leave she reached up and dug her nails into the sleeve of my coat, pulled and ripped the sleeve off my arm. It was ripped from the coat at the shoulder.
"Jesus Christ," I said, "look what you've done to my new coat! I just bought it!"
I opened the door and jumped outside with one bare arm.
I had just unlocked the door to my car when I heard her bare feet on the asphalt behind me. I leaped in and locked the door. I punched the starter.
"I'll kill this car!" she screamed. "I'll kill this car!"
Her fists beat on the hood, on the roof, against the windshield. I moved the car ahead very slowly so as not to injure her. My '62 Mercury Comet had fallen apart, and I'd recently purchased a '67 Volks. I kept it shined and waxed. I even had a whisk broom in the glove compartment. As I pulled away Lydia kept beating on the car with her fists. When I was clear of her I shoved it into second. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw her standing all alone in the moonlight, motionless in her blue negligee and panties. My gut began to twitch and roll. I felt ill, useless, sad. I was in love with her.
12
I went to my place, started drinking. I snapped on the radio and found some classical music. I got my Coleman lantern out of the closet. I turned out the lights and sat playing with the Coleman lantern. There were tricks you could play with a Coleman lantern. Like turning it off and then on again and watching the heat of the wick relight it. I also liked to pump the lantern and bring up the pressure. And then there was simply the pleasure of looking at it. I drank and watched the lantern and listened to the music and smoked a cigar.
The phone rang. It was Lydia. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Just sitting around."
"You're sitting around and drinking and listening to symphony music and playing with that goddamned Coleman lantern!"
"Yes."
"Are you coming back?"
"No."
"All right, drink! Drink and get sick! You know that stuff almost killed you once. Do you remember the hospital?"
"I'll never forget it."
"All right, drink, DRINK! KILL YOURSELF! SEE IF I GIVE A SHIT!"
Lydia hung up and so did I. Something told me she wasn't as worried about my possible death as she was about her next fuck. But I needed a vacation. I needed a rest. Lydia liked to fuck at least nve times a week. I preferred three. I got up and went into the breakfast nook where my typewriter stood on the table. I turned on the light, sat down and typed Lydia a 4-page letter. Then I went into the bathroom, got a razorblade, came out, sat down and had a good drink. I took the razorblade and sliced the middle finger of my right hand. The blood ran. I signed my name to the letter in blood.